


Everybody Dies

by Sara_Ellison



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Substance Abuse, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 12:32:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sara_Ellison/pseuds/Sara_Ellison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is the only way I could see this show ending. Seeing as this is the actual title of the series finale...</p>
    </blockquote>





	Everybody Dies

**Author's Note:**

> This is the only way I could see this show ending. Seeing as this is the actual title of the series finale...

"Get out." House's knuckles are white on the handle of his cane, his jaw set.

The lawyer starts to say, "Dr. House," but Foreman takes the idiot by the elbow and tugs him toward the door. Wilson silently exhales.

For a moment, House only stands there. Then he bursts into motion, striding from the room faster than Wilson has ever seen him move, the end of his cane barely touching the ground. The door of his office smacks into the wall when he flings it open, and Wilson catches the rebound on his shoulder as he hurries after his friend.

House doesn't slow or stop until he reaches the parking garage, but Wilson keeps up with him. House barely looks in Wilson's direction as he throws his helmet at Wilson--the bike's only helmet, and Wilson almost objects because he's the one who's dying anyway, but House is waiting astride the bike and revving the engine, so Wilson mounts behind him and holds onto his friend's waist.

He didn't mean to squeeze so hard, but once he's got his arms around House he finds it difficult to loosen his grip. House doesn't say anything about it, his only protest a quiet grunt of discomfort when Wilson's arms first clamped around his ribs.

The drive goes by largely unnoticed. Wilson doesn't really care where he and House are going or how they get there, as long as they go there together. Emotion wells up in his throat and he ducks his head, pressing his face against the back of House's neck, his nose brushing the starched collar of House's shirt. It smells as familiar as anything, a scent that's been part of Wilson's life so long he can't remember a time without it.

When they arrive in front of House's home, there's a part of Wilson that's surprised. He'd sort of thought House might try something crazy, take him to Atlantic City for a wild night of debauchery or simply drive off into the sunset with him. Instead, House has simply brought Wilson home, and when Wilson climbs off the bike he finds that he's trembling.

He isn't sure what he expects when he follows House into the apartment, but House barely glances at him as he locks the door and strides to the kitchen, where he hangs his cane from a light fixture and begins rummaging in the fridge. He straightens abruptly to throw a bottle at Wilson, who fumbles and nearly drops it, startled. House sets another beer on the counter for himself, then follows it with a stick of butter, a package of gorgonzola, some meat Wilson can't immediately identify, and a bundle of leeks.

"House?" Wilson prompts, because his friend seems to have forgotten he's there.

"Yeah?" House answers, reaching into a cabinet and pulling out a sack of potatoes.

It's on the tip of Wilson's tongue to ask _What are you doing?_ but the answer to that question is obvious--he's cooking, and Wilson knows House would only find a clever and snarky way to point out how dumb a question it is. Instead he says, "Do you have a bottle opener?"

House rummages in a draw for a moment, then reaches over and pops the cap off Wilson's beer. As an afterthought, he opens his own bottle as well before exchanging the opener for a knife and cutting board. "It'll be a bit before dinner's ready," he says. "You don't have to stand around and wait. Watch TV or something."

"I can help," Wilson offers. He doesn't want to feel useless. He didn't come here to have House wait on him. _Why did I come here?_

House fixes him with an admonishing glare. "I can manage." They both know that; they both know that's not why Wilson offered, and they know it's not why House refused.

"I want to help," Wilson tries again, and the challenge in House's eyes vanishes.

"You can wash the potatoes," House says, and Wilson smiles and sets to work.

The potatoes are small, with thin red skins. Wilson can't scrub too hard, or the skin comes right off; it doesn't take him too long, but before he's done House is already waiting impatiently to rinse the leeks under the tap.

While the potatoes cook, House throws the leeks and butter into a skillet and begins slicing up the meat. "What _is_ that?" Wilson asks, unable to resist his curiosity. It looks to be about half fat, not that he's too concerned about eating healthy anymore.

"Duck bacon," his friend answers, as close to gleeful as Wilson has ever seen House in relation to food.

Wilson raises an eyebrow, but he can't deny, as House begins to fry the sliced duck in the leeky butter, that it smells absolutely delicious.

"Damn!" House says loudly, making Wilson jump. "Mushrooms. I forgot." He throws open the fridge door again, pulling out a brown paper bag and upending it on the cutting board. He turns down the heat on the skillet. "Well, don't just stand there," he barks at Wilson. "Hurry, before the leeks get overcooked." He grabs a shiitake and snaps the stem off. Wilson moves to his side and follows suit; when the all caps are separated from their stems, House quickly slices them and tosses them into the skillet.

House surveys the pan morosely. "Shit. Those were supposed to be cooked sooner, so the flavors could blend."

"House," Wilson says placatingly. "Don't beat yourself up about it. It'll be fine."

House turns to look at Wilson, instead, for a long moment. Wilson can't put a name to his expression. He looks far sadder than the food merits. 

"House," Wilson starts to say again, but House gives a little shrug as though shaking off the weight of his emotion and turns back to the range. "Potatoes are done," he announces. He pulls the saucepan off the cooktop, drains it, and throws in a handful of blue cheese. "Here." He hands a potato masher to Wilson. "You wanted to help, so help." He turns back to glare at the skillet, turning the slices of meat with a spatula.

House is in a Mood. Wilson knows it has nothing to do with the food, really, and everything to do with him, and it's not something he can help. He didn't come here tonight to have House sulk under his black stormcloud all night, though, and as he sets to mashing the potatoes with a bit more force than strictly necessary, he resolves to get House to smile at least once before the sun rises.

House divides the food between two plates and adds a fork and knife to each. Retrieving his cane from the ceiling, he limps to the couch, sets his plate in his lap and puts his feet up on the coffee table as Wilson follows. He reaches for the remote, turns on the TV, and starts flipping through the channels. Eventually, he stops on a basketball game between two teams neither of them care about.

Wilson takes a bite of his food, and it really is fantastic. "Wow," he says with his mouth full. "This is--"

"Chew and swallow," House interrupts him. "Don't choke. I'm not giving you the Heimlich maneuver and having you puke on my floor again."

Wilson elbows him in the ribs and swallows his mouthful. Mashed potatoes don't really require chewing. "I was trying to tell you it's delicious, you ass," he says mildly.

"The shiitakes should have cooked longer," House grouses.

"Shut up."

They sit in companionable silence long after their plates are empty. At some point one or both of them shifted so that their shoulders are touching, and they sit half-leaning against each other on the couch, occasionally cursing at the television when someone makes a particularly bad play.

Wilson glances, from time to time, at House, and finds him looking at the screen each time; but every so often, he thinks he sees House's eyes flicker away from Wilson's face. After the third time this happens, House takes Wilson's hand, interlacing their fingers, and Wilson wonders aloud when they slipped into a middle-school crush.

"You looked like you wanted to hold hands," House says, his tone slightly mocking.

Wilson frowns. "I'm not sure if you're trying to make fun of me or not, but if you are, it's kind of sabotaged by the fact that you _are_ actually holding my hand."

House doesn't answer. From the look on his face, Wilson thinks maybe he isn't sure either.

When the basketball game ends, House levers himself up off the couch. "It's getting late," he says.

It's only 9:30, but Wilson is tired. He's tired a lot of the time, these days. "Yeah," he says. He kicks off his shoes and stretches out on the couch.

House frowns down at him. "What are you doing?"

Wilson frowns right back. "Going to sleep?" He glances at the coffee table, where the empty plates still sit. "Did you want me to get the dishes?"

House shakes his head jerkily. "They can wait. You're not sleeping on the couch, Wilson."

"I'm fine here," Wilson protests.

"This is the last time I'm ever going to see you, and I am not letting you spend the night on a couch to wake up with a sore back and a crick in your neck and your last memory of me being associated with discomfort and pain and having you resent me for it until you die."

And there it is, the reason Wilson followed House home tonight, the reason for House's black mood, the reason he held Wilson's hand on the sofa. The silence following House's little rant is deafening, so Wilson stands and murmurs, "Okay."

Wilson follows House into the bedroom, and pauses in confusion when House sits down on the edge of the bed to take his shoes off. "I thought..." he begins, trailing off when House cocks an eyebrow at him.

"Well, _I'm_ not spending the night on the couch. It's my damn bed."

Wilson feels as though his eyebrows are trying to climb into his hair, and swallows half a dozen instinctive questions. There is a good chance, he realizes, that this will get weird at some point in the night, but he's willing to accept that. His relationship with House has been weird since time immemorial, so it really seems fitting that his last night with the man will continue in that vein. He shrugs, takes off his shirt and pants, and gets into bed. House flicks off the light switch with the end of his cane, and follows suit.

It feels like hours that Wilson lies there in the darkness, unable to sleep. Tired as he is, he can't get his mind to quiet down or his body to relax. There's a strange tension in the darkness. He's hard, almost unbearably so, an involuntary reaction to the stress of this strange situation, or anxiety about the future, or simply a conditioned reaction to being in bed with another person. Wilson listens to his friend's breathing, and knows House is awake as well.

The curtains are open, and the light from a streetlamp provides enough illumination that Wilson can see House's face picked out in stark shadows. House is lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Wilson can read tension in the lines of his face; House's body is nearly trembling with it. He's tempted to reach over and touch House's shoulder, to try to soothe him, but he imagines House's violent reaction to an unexpected touch and decides against it.

He rolls toward House instead, the movement impossible to miss before House feels the touch, impossible to startle him. Wilson wraps an arm around House's body, pressed to his side. His erection is poking House in the hip, awkwardly, but he tries to ignore it. Let House tease him about it if he will. It seems so much less important than hugging his friend right now.

House turns toward him abruptly, his arms around Wilson in return, throws a leg over Wilson's and good God, House is hard too. His hand cups Wilson's face and then House is kissing him. He grinds his pelvis against Wilson's as Wilson's brain stutters to a halt because that's not what this was about, or so he halfheartedly tries to tell himself, even as he realizes it's a lie. He knew what he was doing the moment he got on the back of House's motorcycle tonight. Hell, they've been dancing around this for years, skirting ever closer with coy jibes that neither of them would admit struck a little too close to home.

"House," he tries to say, but House's tongue is in his mouth and it's impossible to talk, so he kisses back and tries not to come in his boxers. House moans into his mouth, and Wilson feels him trembling under his hands. Wilson grips him tighter, pulls him closer, rolls a little so House is lying half on top of him.

It's House who breaks the kiss, breathing hard. "Okay?" he asks, and Wilson nods. House's eyes are dark with desire in the pale light, and Wilson hitches his hips up against him just to hear him gasp, the hot hard line of his cock grinding against Wilson's thigh.

There's a tension in Wilson's chest threatening to snap, and he thinks wildly, _It's now or never._ "I want you to fuck me," he blurts, before he can change his mind. House groans and drops his head, hiding his face in the crook of Wilson's neck.

"You sure?" he breathes, lips against the tender skin under Wilson's ear, and Wilson shivers and nods.

"Have you got a condom?" he asks, but House is already leaning over him, reaching for the drawer in the bedside table.

"Don't be stupid," House says. Something in the drawer rattles, and he pulls out a tube of medical-grade lubricant. Naturally. Wilson resists the urge to demand whether House stole that from the hospital, because it really doesn't matter when House's hands are slipping under the waistband of his boxers and he's kicking off his own shorts.

Wilson bites his lip. He trusts House, of course, and he doesn't really care about catching an STD when he'll be dead in five months anyway, but... "You don't want to get something from me," he says.

"I don't _care_ ," House replies, slipping a hand between Wilson's legs, and Wilson gasps because the lube is _cold_.

"Not to belabor the point," Wilson gets out, wincing because he knows it's kind of a mood-killer even with House's slick fingertips circling his hole, "but you don't know I'm clean."

"Last I checked, cancer isn't contagious," House retorts, pressing a finger inside, "except cervical. Are you a girl?"

Wilson grabs House's other hand and wraps it around his own dick. "Do I feel like a girl to you?" he retorts. House grins wickedly in the darkness, tightens his grip and strokes him as his finger finds Wilson's prostate. "Oh, _fuck_ ," he moans.

"That's the general idea," House says, and Wilson's eye-roll is aborted as House adds a second finger, scissoring them to stretch him open. He rocks back on House's hand, needing his fingers on that spot again, his cock jerking in House's grasp as they find it.

"Then do it," he manages, choking back a whine when the fingers are suddenly gone, only to be replaced a moment later by the blunt pressure of the head of House's cock against his entrance.

"Wilson, you gotta relax," House grunts, pushing in, and Wilson makes a heroic effort to do so.

"Trying," he says. "Never done this before."

"I know," House answers, as the flared head slips past the tight ring of muscle, making them both gasp. "Oh, God. You're tight."

"I _know_ ," Wilson says. He opens his legs wider, tilting his hips to change the angle, and House slips in another couple inches, scraping over his prostate and Wilson cries out, "Fuck, right there!"

House bottoms out, biting his lip, and he feels so big inside Wilson, he feels so full and it's strange, an unaccustomed sensation but it feels incredible and he finds himself moaning as House pulls back a fraction and thrusts in again, tentatively.

"Okay?" House murmurs again, and Wilson answers by kissing him roughly, teeth catching against House's lips as he rocks his pelvis to meet House's thrusts, driving him deeper.

When House gets a hand around Wilson's cock again, Wilson knows the end is near. He grips House's shoulders, nails biting into his skin as stars start to burst behind his eyes and House's rhythm falters. He doesn't want it to be over this soon but it feels too good, and his orgasm still somehow takes him by surprise with its suddenness and force. He clenches involuntarily around House as he spurts over his belly, crying out wordlessly.

"God," House chokes out, "Wilson--" and he shudders too and stills deep inside Wilson, and God, Wilson can feel him pulsing hot within him as he comes, and Wilson clings to him like he's drowning.

House's breath is hot against the side of Wilson's neck. He shifts a little, pulling out, but doesn't move off Wilson, and Wilson is fine with that. The weight of his friend's body is comforting. One of House's hands strokes idly through Wilson's hair. Wilson shuts his eyes and breathes in the scent of House's hair, endorphins keeping reality at bay for a while longer.

It could be minutes or hours later when Wilson says quietly, "I don't want to die alone."

House stirs. "God damn it, Wilson." His sigh ruffles the hair behind Wilson's ear. "You won't be alone. You have other people that love you. They'll all stand around your bed and hold hands and cry, and it'll all be very moving and sweet."

"But you won't be there," Wilson says, and House doesn't answer. "I don't want to die in pain, House. I want to die happy."

House is silent for a long moment, just long enough for Wilson to start to wonder if he should clarify that he means now, then House moves, reaching for the drawer in the bedside table and Wilson knows he guessed right when he heard that rattle. That was the sound of more bottles of Vicodin than House should have, and Wilson quashes the part of him that wants to scold House for his not-so-secret stash because this is what he wanted, what he was counting on.

House counts out a precise handful of pills without a word and tips them into Wilson's cupped palm. Wilson's heart is pounding; there's no going back from this, no changing his mind. The same, of course, could be said for this entire evening, his relationship with House inexorably altered. He tips the handful into his mouth and swallows.

House is counting out more for himself, and part of Wilson wants to stop him, but he can't honestly say that he's surprised, or that he doesn't understand why. House catches his eye, reads his question and answers with a grimace that's almost a smile. Wherever Wilson is going, House will be with him. He waits for House to swallow his own overdose, then kisses him.

They lie alongside each other, close enough to touch easily, but not so close that they have to. Wilson feels warm, his skin tingling pleasantly. "Is this what you feel all the time?" he mumbles.

"Sort of," House answers languidly. "Not this strong. I've got a tolerance."

"'Course you do," Wilson agrees. He watches the ceiling, the shadows from the windowpane. Outside, a car drives down the street, its headlights shining squares of light across the painted plaster. "Should we get dressed?" he wonders.

"Why would we want to do that?" House says.

Wilson lifts his hand in front of his face and wiggles the fingers. He can't feel it. It could be somebody else's hand, for all he knows. "Dignity," he says vaguely. "When they find us."

House laughs. "Nah. Let 'em see. Find us with your come on my skin, let them know instead of guess."

Wilson turns his head to look at House. His friend is grinning at him, a light in his eyes like Wilson has rarely seen, and Wilson feels suddenly _fuzzy_ in addition to the warmth he knows is from the drug. It feels like his heart is swaddled in baby bunnies, soft and silly, and he finds himself laughing too. He reaches out and finds House's hand, entwining their fingers.

"I knew you wanted to hold hands," House says.

Wilson squeezes his hand. "You're an ass."

"I love you," House answers.

It could be the Vicodin talking, or it might not be. Wilson doesn't care. He doesn't answer, either, only because he can't feel the bed under him anymore, and he can't feel his face. All he can feel is warmth and love.


End file.
